Jason Toon

A couple of weeks ago, it seemed like everybody’s heart was a-flutter for Twitter,
the social-networking application that lets you share brief status
report messages with your fellow Twits – stuff like “currently grooming
my nose hair” or “OMG this enchilada has a band-aid in it”. Then, last
week, the anti-Twitter backlash set in. Today begins the
anti-anti-Twitter-backlash backlash, because once people find out that
Woot has its very own official Twitter-bot, they won’t be able to
resist it.

That’s right: you can sign up for a free Twitter account, make Woot
your Twitter friend, and receive automatic updates when we put a new
product up, when the daily product sells out, or when anything else
happens around here. Twitter updates are available through your IM
client or as text messages on your phone, along with the standard
web-based Twitter interface. Unlike other Woot watchers (which we also
love), Twitter is a one-stop way to keep up with us and your “real”
friends at the same time. And unlike our own SMS service through SayNow (again, much love), Twitter will be regularly updated during Woot-Offs.

But
you should know that Twitter’s sudden, unexpected popularity surge has
strained their servers. Hey, we know the feeling. We’ve been told that
they’re working to speed things up, and we can tell: today it’s
definitely faster than yesterday. Fortunately for us, the heaviest
loads seem to come mostly during the day, while our most important
messages go out at midnight. So it’s not much skin off our collective
nose.

We have to thank a loyal and industrious Woot member, Jesse Newland, for starting this Twitter bot all on his own, and then
passing it off to us. Kudos to you and yours, sir! We don’t know if any
other online store has been so rash as to leap onto the Twitter
bandwagon just yet. We’re not entirely certain that it makes any sense
for us to do it. But let it never be said that Woot passed up any
opportunity to insinuate ourselves deeper and deeper into your life.

gwp

BenrobNU wrote:Perhaps a bit of foreshadowing for an upcoming woot-off?

Like the current one?

The Woot-off seems to have broken it. There hasn't been a Twitter update since the Polaroid camera (5 hours ago)

The early notifications were murder via SMS though, as it was sending them for launch, sell-out, and various percentages throughout the item. Much better now with just the launch alert. (If they start back up again that is...)

Edit: The current projector (7:07 CDT) showed up. Hopefully that means people are awake now and watching things operate.

splott

Y'know, there's a Firefox add-on called WootWatcher...it makes the current Woot item show up in your status bar, and if it's a woot-off it shows you what percentage of the item is remaining. It's nifty and not-broken as long as you have the most current version of Firefox (2.0+). O'course, you still have to look at your computer tho.

And wow, the update is quick, the percentage has changed just since I wrote this quick message.

Jason W

Thanks so much for doing this -- I just got roped into Twitter myself. Woot's Twitter feed seems to be out of date; their last update suggests the Samsung UMPC is still up. Gotta keep retrying in the middle of the day while the servers are extremely overloaded!

gwp

moorerandall wrote:you guys do realize that the text messages are from a foreign country therefore incurring international fees

it would be a great thing to try but i dont wanna pay the international fees

From Twitter's FAQ:

Twitter is in the United States...what if I'm not?

We have international numbers for people outside of the US. If you're in the United Kingdom (UK) or most places in and around the European Union (EU) you can use: +44 7781 488126. This is our main international number currently, but if you'd like to see a local number for your area, Write us and let us know!

And:

Text Messages? Sounds expensive. How much will it cost me?

Twitter is free; we don't charge you a dime.

And:

How will Twitter affect my phone bill?

It depends on your phone plan. Some people pay a per-message charge of ten cents or more. Some people have an allotted number of text messages monthly. Some (lucky!) people have unlimited text plans.

glabifrons

Um... the bot's broken.
No updates for a looong time now.
I thought this would be awesome, having an SMS message for each update... so I can actually cook, eat, sleep, (even WORK!), etc. during a woot-off.
Please fix it... this really is a great idea! :^)

Woot.com is operated by Woot Services LLC.
Products on Woot.com are sold by Woot, Inc., other than items on Wine.Woot which are sold by the seller specified on the product detail page.
Product narratives are for entertainment purposes and frequently employ
literary point of view;
the narratives do not express Woot's editorial opinion.
Aside from literary abuse, your use of this site also subjects you to Woot's
terms of use
and
privacy policy.
Woot may designate a user comment as a Quality Post, but that doesn't mean we agree with or guarantee anything said or linked to in that post.